Southern California Rating:FICTION1. DREAMING SOUTHERN by...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1. DREAMING SOUTHERN by Linda Bruckheimer (Dutton: $23.95) A mother and her children head west on Route 66 to join her husband and get into mishaps along the way.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 5

2. A MAN IN FULL by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: $28.95) The story of a real estate tycoon’s crash and burn and the sleaze who warm themselves by the fire.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 13

3. AMSTERDAM by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: $21) A journalist, composer and politician ease feelings of emptiness by sabotaging one another’s careers.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 8

4. THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins: $27.50) An evangelical Baptist missionary takes his wife and children to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 17

5. THE SIMPLE TRUTH by David Baldacci (Warner: $25) Twenty-five years ago, Rufus Harms was convicted of a murder he knows he committed. Suddenly, he’s not guilty, or is he?

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 11

6. ANGELS FLIGHT by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown: $24) A lawyer who has charged the LAPD with racism and brutality is murdered at the foot of the funicular.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 6

7. SOUTHERN CROSS by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam: $25.95) Cornwell takes a close look at the personal and professional lives of big-city police.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 3

8. INNER CITY BLUES by Paula L. Woods (W.W. Norton: $23.95) A detective investigates a homicide in the shadows of racism and L.A.’s 1992 riots.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

9. HEAVY WATER AND OTHER STORIES by Martin Amis (Harmony: $21) Tales of spoiled novelists and other pampered denizens of the literary upper crust.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

10. DUANE’S DEPRESSED by Larry McMurtry (Simon and Schuster: $26) A 60-ish Texas oil man flees his dysfunctional family for a cabin in the woods, after Thoreau.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 3

11. BILLY STRAIGHT by Jonathan Kellerman (Random House: $25.95) A homicide detective races to find a young murder witness before the killer does.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 4

12. SONNY LISTON WAS A FRIEND OF MINE by Thom Jones (Little Brown: $23) Twelve stories portray Vietnam vets, a 92-year-old woman, a featherweight champion boxer and others.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 2

13. THE PARABLE OF THE TALENTS by Octavia Butler (Seven Stories Press: $24.95) Survival in a dangerous new world in early-21st century California.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 4

14. STARDUST by Neil Gaiman (Avon: $22) A fantasy tale of young Tristran Thorn’s quest to recover a fallen star and avoid the clutches of witches, goblins and a scheming lord.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

15. GLAMORAMA by Bret Easton Ellis (Alfred A. Knopf: $25) A young man sinks into the dark side of fame and human nature in fashionable New York, London and Paris.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 5

****

NONFICTION

1. THE GREATEST GENERATION by Tom Brokaw (Random House: $24.95) TV anchor tells the stories of the generation that came of age during the Depression and World War II.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 8

2. REPORTING LIVE by Lesley Stahl (Simon & Schuster: $26) From Watergate to Monicagate: inside the world of television news, from a woman who has seen it all.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 2

3. TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom (Doubleday: $19.95) A sportswriter’s empowering story about his weekly visits to see an older dying friend.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 57

4. CARELESS LOVE by Peter Guralnick (Little, Brown: $27.95) A chronicle of Elvis Presley’s decline and demise; the companion book to the author’s “Last Train to Memphis.”

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 4

5. THE RIGHT TO WRITE by Julia Cameron (Tarcher/Putnam: $19.95) Insights into the spiritual component of the writing life and how to develop your own creativity.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 4

6. THE MONK AND THE PHILOSOPHER by Jean-Francois Revel and Matthieu Ricard (Schocken Books: $24) A father and son meet to debate their differing views of the cosmos.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

7. THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins: $22) The editor of the Oxford English Dictionary was helped by a brilliant mental patient.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 19

8. CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, BOOK ONE by Neale Donald Walsch (Putnam: $19.95) Messages from Mr. Big about good, evil and the meaning of life.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 82

9. THE LAST MOGUL by Dennis McDougal (Crown: $27.50) A profile of Lew Wasserman, the Hollywood power broker, the last of his generation.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 5

10. CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, BOOK THREE by Neale Donald Walsch (Hampton Roads: $22.95) Further dispatches on life and death dictated by the Man Upstairs.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 13

11. THE ECOLOGY OF FEAR by Mike Davis (Metropolitan Books: $25) Los Angeles’ precarious environmental history and some apocalyptic warnings about its future.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 18

12. BLIND MAN’S BLUFF by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (PublicAffairs: $2 5) Revelations about the secret world of American submarine espionage.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 8

13. A NIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR by Jewel (HarperCollins: $15) A collection of poetry drawn from the pop singer’s life and experiences.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 14

14. ELEGY FOR IRIS by John Bayley (St. Martin’s: $22.95) A tribute to the author and philosopher Iris Murdoch, stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, by her husband.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

15. KING OF THE WORLD by David Remnick (Random House: $25) From Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali: the story of the world’s greatest prizefighter.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 10

Paperbacks

FICTION

1. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden (Vintage: $14) The life and loves of a teahouse entertainer in Kyoto.

2. CHARMING BILLY by Alice McDermott (Delta: $12.95) A family reflects on the life of a deceased relative.

3. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $6.99) A woman seeks the author of a mysterious message.

4. THE STREET LAWYER by John Grisham (Dell Island: $7.99) A lawyer’s transformation into a defender of the homeless.

5. DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD by Rebecca Wells (HarperPerennial: $13) Sisterhood in the South.

6. THE READER by Bernhard Schlink (Vintage: $11) A boyhood interlude with an older woman and its tragic aftermath.

7. MIDWIVES by Chris Bohjalian (Vintage: $13) The moral dilemmas of a New England midwife.

8. THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy (HarperPerennial: $13) Rise and fall of an Indian family.

9. WHERE THE HEART IS by Billie Letts (Warner: $12) A teen starts a new life, and gives birth, in a Wal-Mart.

10. ENDURING LOVE by Ian McEwan (Anchor: $12.95) A London journalist is stalked by an obsessive admirer.

****

NONFICTION

1. A CIVIL ACTION by Jonathan Harr (Vintage: $13) David versus a toxic industrial Goliath in a Massachusetts town.

2. HAPPINESS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM by Dennis Prager (ReganBooks: $13) Finding real satisfaction in life.

3. PARIS IN THE FIFTIES by Stanley Karnow (Random House: $14) A journalist’s apprenticeship in postwar Paris.

4. THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko (Pocket: $14) Secrets of the wealthy.

5. THE LAST OF THE BEST by Jim Murray (Los Angeles Times: $15.95) Pearls of journalism from the late sportswriter.

6. CRIME WAVE by James Ellroy (Random House: $12) Essays, plus two stories, about L.A.’s seamy, undead past.

7. UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN by Frances Mayes (Broadway: $13) Making a home in a glorious Italian landscape.

8. NSYNC by Nsync and K.M. Squires (Bantam: $9.95) A scrapbook about the hip young singing quintet.

9. HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION by Thomas Cahill (Anchor: $12) What Irish monks did after Rome’s fall.

10. ADVENTURES OF A PSYCHIC by Sylvia Browne (Hay House: $12.95) The true story of a successful clairvoyant.

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.